Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): We are joined from the Department by Julie Wilson, deputy director of victims support division; Emma Crozier, head of victims and witnesses branch; and Joanne McDermott, deputy principal, victims and witnesses branch. You are welcome to the Committee.

I invite you to make an opening statement, Julie.

Ms Julie Wilson (Department of Justice): Thank you, Chair and Committee members. We are grateful for the opportunity to speak to you today, and we welcome the opportunity to outline the context, ambition and operational direction underpinning the strategy. The strategy represents a significant, cross-system commitment to improve the experience of victims and witnesses who come into contact with the criminal justice process. The strategy has been defined not only by policy objectives but by the voices, stories and lived realities of victims and witnesses across Northern Ireland.

Before I turn to the detail, I acknowledge those who have given their time to respond to the consultation at its various stages and those who have fed back their experiences directly to the Minister or through surveys or by other means. All of that has helped to shape the strategy. The strategy reflects views from a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives and experiences, and we believe that that has resulted in a better strategy and in the inclusion in our delivery plan of more relevant and effective actions.

There has also been extensive collaboration with partners across the criminal justice system and with community and voluntary sector organisations, all of which have key roles to play in supporting and enabling the delivery of a justice system that ensures that victims and witnesses are shown respect, courtesy and sensitivity and are offered the support that they need to help them as they journey through the system.

As I said, one of the most important elements of the work on the strategy has been hearing the views of victims and witnesses during the call for views and the public consultation. The comments received were honest, powerful and often uncomfortable to hear, particularly when they highlighted gaps or failings in the system. The feedback included:

Those are powerful statements, but they are not isolated comments. They reflect issues that we have been aware of and grappling with for many years. Progress was definitely made under the last strategy, but we recognise that, despite that progress, many victims still feel lost in the process and unsure about whom they need to speak to, when decisions will be taken and why certain outcomes occur. Through the strategy, we want to address those persistent challenges. In not just its development but its delivery, the strategy places the voices of victims and witnesses at its centre. We have consulted victims and witnesses as we have developed the strategy, and our intention is to continue to engage with them as we develop the policies, services and interventions under the strategy.

The need for the strategy is clear: crime harms individuals, families and communities in ways that can often be long-lasting, deeply personal and invisible. Those who become victims or witnesses do not choose that role, yet they are essential participants in the justice process, and the justice system needs to meet them with professionalism, compassion and respect at every stage.

The strategy aims to address three important realities. The first is that the impact of crime is wide-ranging and affects physical, emotional, psychological and community well-being. The second reality is that, when support and communication are insufficient or inconsistent, experiences in the criminal justice system can compound and have compounded trauma. The third reality is that confidence in the justice system is directly linked to how victims and witnesses feel about how they are treated, whether their rights are being upheld and whether the system is transparent, timely and fair. Outcomes matter to victims, but so do the journey and the process that they need to go through.

The strategy's lifespan is set to cover six years because meaningful systemic change is an ongoing, evolving process that takes time and cannot be delivered by any single agency working in isolation. The strategy has been built on four key principles. First, it is informed by victims and witnesses, including children. As I said, their voices have shaped the work in its priorities and performance, and we believe that that has very much enriched the strategy. Secondly, the strategy relies on partnership. The justice system is complex, with independent but often interdependent organisations that include law enforcement; legal professionals; voluntary sector partners; associated organisations that have a role in monitoring, inspecting and handling complaints; and a Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime. A partnership approach is essential in delivering a joined-up and streamlined response that victims and witnesses experience as a single cohesive system rather than the fragmented and disorienting one that we often hear about. The third principle is about trauma-informed practice, which underpins everything that we seek to achieve in the strategy. It is the key approach that, our engagement and feedback have told us, will transform the experience of victims and witnesses in the justice system. The fourth principle is about research and best practice. We will seek to maintain close links with our local academic institutions and research bodies to make sure that we avail ourselves of evidence-based reports and recommendations. We will maintain close contact with neighbouring jurisdictions to share experiences and identify best practice. We will also develop improved data capture systems to monitor how well we uphold Victim Charter and Witness Charter obligations and capture victims' feedback on their experiences in the system.

Those four principles in turn underpin the five pillars of the strategy. The first pillar is support, which is about ensuring that victims and witnesses have access to timely, tailored and effective support services at every stage. We will achieve that through actions such as developing a new victim and witness needs assessment service, reviewing the provision of referral pathways between police and Victim Support, continuing to fund existing support services and establishing the systems to gather the data and evidence about victim and witness experiences that I mentioned.

Pillar 2 is about communication and information. Given the comments and feedback that I read out, that is, obviously, fundamental to victim confidence. The intention under that pillar is to ensure that victims and witnesses receive timely updates, clear explanations and accessible information and communications, presented in a trauma-informed way.

Pillar 3 is about transparency and participation. It is about being open and clear about the stages of the criminal justice system and the decisions that impact on victims and witnesses. In practical terms, it is about providing better information about the decision-making process and reasoning behind it; supporting victims and witnesses to have their voices heard; exploring alternatives to prosecution where appropriate; and strengthening special measures. That work will include a review of the use of victim personal statements. We will also seek to ensure that information about potential alternatives to prosecution, including restorative justice practice, is included as part of any future revision of the Victim Charter and the Witness Charter. We will ensure that, where leave is given by the court, the use of remote evidence facilities is offered, and we will explore how to expand the existing facilities.

Pillar 4 is about rights and confidence: improving public confidence in the justice system by consistently delivering the services and standards that we are obliged to deliver under the charters. We know that we do not consistently deliver those things, so, in support of that work, we intend, as the Committee is aware, to establish a new statutory office of the commissioner for victims and witnesses of crime. We plan to legislate for criminal justice organisations to report on and demonstrate charter compliance and to increase opportunities for the voices of victims and witnesses to be heard, including through the publication of survey results.

Pillar 5 focuses on children and young people. It is about ensuring that their specific needs are taken into account and that the system is adapted to deliver on those needs. We plan to focus on child-centred, age-appropriate and trauma-informed support, to progress towards a Barnahus-informed model and to ensure that the views of children, young people, parents and carers are sought, listened to and acted on. We will also look at how we can move the children's sexual offences legal adviser (CSOLA) pilot into mainstream services, and we will build on existing plans to pilot pre-recorded cross-examination. How we engage children and young people is really important. We plan to develop a bespoke children and young people model for gathering feedback and to create a children and young people's version of the strategy document.

We know that many communities and cohorts of victims and witnesses have highlighted barriers to reporting and to staying engaged and accessing support. The strategy is intended to be for all victims and witnesses of crime, and we want to ensure that the support delivered under the strategy is tailored to individual needs. We want to deliver a strategy that will allow victims to feel safe and listened to. Our action plan sets out the ways in which we want to increase opportunities for the voices of victims and witnesses to be heard.

They include direct engagement with representative bodies, including rural and minority communities and disability organisations, in developing future policy and delivering operational change.

To ensure credibility and delivery, the strategy includes a two-year action plan, with further plans to follow; a comprehensive performance framework; oversight by the victim and witness steering group; a central role for victim champions; transparent progress reporting; and increased data collection across the system. Every action has a responsible owner, and every outcome has a measurable indicator. We want to ensure that the strategy will deliver.

Many consultation respondents emphasised the fact that improvements are not possible without investment. We recognise that, but, as the Committee is aware, funding pressures are real, and they remain challenging. To manage the pressures, we intend to prioritise the actions that will deliver the greatest positive impact on victims and witnesses. We will continue to make the case for sustainable multi-year funding for support services and for the delivery of the strategy.

The strategy represents both a commitment and a challenge: a commitment to improving the experiences of victims and witnesses and a challenge to do better consistently, compassionately and transparently as a system. We owe it to victims and witnesses to ensure that their engagement with the criminal justice system does not deepen their trauma or diminish their confidence in justice. We want a system that empowers, supports and protects those who need it most.

We are happy to take questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you for your presentation, Julie, and for coming before the Committee on the important issue of updating the strategy.

The victims and witnesses of crime Bill will, hopefully, be with us soon: is there a date for that?

Ms Wilson: We aim to introduce it before June. Work is ongoing on instructions and drafting.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): As I sift through the strategy document, I see a trend in the tables relating to the pillars, which is the use of the term "Cost TBC" — cost to be confirmed — threaded throughout the strategy. How can you, in all seriousness, bring a strategy to the Committee and roll it out when it has not been costed?

Ms Wilson: Some of the measures in the strategy and the action plan have been costed, and some will need preparatory and scoping work so that we can identify the costs. We have done some of that preparatory work for things such as the victim and witness needs assessment service: a bid for that is with the transformation fund. There are some things on which we need to do more preparatory work, and that work is part of what we intend to do under the action plan.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): How do you see the strategy playing out if you cannot identify the costs and your finance team is therefore unable to identify them, yet you have to provide costings to the Executive showing what your budget will look like for the next three years? I am talking about the budget for the whole Department. If you are left with blind spots in the strategy, how will you bid for the appropriate funds?

Ms Wilson: The preparatory work for some of the things that we hope to make operational and are working on under the action plan will fall within the first two years, with delivery and cost likely to follow in year 3 or year 4. It is an evolving strategy. The first two years are not purely about scoping; some of that time will be about delivery. Where we have the costs and are in a position to deliver, we will do so. Our bids evolve as well. We constantly highlight areas in which we want to bring forward new services, along with what the effect of doing so will be. We do not have the full picture, but we have parts of the picture, and, where we know that detail, we bid for the funding.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): That begs this question: if you do not have the full picture, how will anybody in the sector who is affected by your strategy have it?

Ms Wilson: With respect — I mean that respectfully, not cheekily — we have been focusing on the development of the strategy with the intention of bringing forward programmes of work to realise its ambition. We have always been aware that it will take time. It is a six-year strategy, and we do not know the full costs for the whole strategy. Being realistic, we do not know what funding we will receive either. We will make bids as the costs are identified, but we need to look at options at the same time. Take, for example, the victim and witness needs assessment service. We have done initial, early scoping, but work is needed to look at how that service will dock with existing services. We need to do that work to show due diligence and to ensure that we do not duplicate other work and that we end up with a cohesive system that makes best use of public funds. That work is complicated and takes time. There is no way in which we could have produced a strategy and done all the costings in advance. It will evolve.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I will give you an example. One of the actions is to:

We already have the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime, whose office is, pretty much, operational, yet you have not costed that.

Ms Wilson: That work is ongoing. A business case is being prepared. We were not in a position to put it into the strategy, but that does not mean that the work is not well advanced. We can write to you with further detail on that. It is not in the strategy because it is ongoing work. We are progressing on multiple fronts. The team that works on that has worked on the strategy and is working on the Bill. We progress pieces of work in parallel and in tandem; we do not have all our ducks in a row before moving on to the next stage.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): How much is the commissioner designate costing us?

Ms Wilson: I do not have that information in front of me, but I can write to you with it. The costs of the commissioner designate will help to inform costings for the statutory commissioner, but other functions etc will need to be costed. A lot of thinking has been done, but we do not have the final costs.

Mr Beattie: Julie, thank you for that presentation. I am going to be really honest: I have banged my head against a wall on this on so many occasions. I think of victims and witnesses from the moment that they become a victim or a witness and as they go through the criminal justice system to the trial, and I think of them post trial as well. Am I right in saying that, in order to get all the communication and information that you talked about, they have to sign up to one of the victim information schemes?

Ms Wilson: No. Those are specific schemes and are set in statute. We are talking about providing information on an ongoing case — what is happening in the investigation — at appropriate times and in line with what organisations are required to provide under the Victim Charter and the Witness Charter. When I talk about improving how we inform and communicate with people, that is about making sure that there are timely updates, engaging with victims at the right time to understand their needs when it comes to the trial date and their availability etc and being clear about changes to the process and about the language that different organisations might use to communicate. Victim information schemes are different. They are operated by the Prison Service and the Probation Board and are about the offender, and people need to register for them.

Mr Beattie: The scheme that you have put before us runs up to the time of conviction and then stops — is that what we are saying? — after which there is something else, or does it sweep through? That seems strange to me, because a victim or a witness does not stop being a victim or a witness the moment that the trial is over; they remain a victim or a witness. You have just said that, under the strategy, once the trial is over, they will get no more information unless they sign up to a victim information scheme. That does not sound coherent or joined-up to me.

Ms Wilson: The Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime would reinforce the view that, in communicating with victims, anything that we do should be done on the basis of consent. They should receive updates as frequently as they wish, depending on when they want to hear them. When it comes to the victim information schemes in particular, there is a need for victims to say, "Yes, I want to be part of this and to receive this information", because some people will not want that.

Mr Beattie: What you are saying to victims, Julie, is this: before the trial, you do not have to sign up to anything — you will just get the information — but, as soon as the trial is over, you have to sign up. I do not understand why there is a sudden block and everything changes the moment that the trial is over, because, to me, nothing changes; in my head, it is a continuation. We are saying that people should get the information as frequently as they want before the trial without signing up to anything — we will just give them that information — but, post trial, the individual has to decide to sign up to a victim information scheme. I do not see how that is joined-up.

Ms Wilson: The victim information schemes are set in statute; it is a statutory requirement that individuals register for them. I have no operational or policy responsibility for the schemes, so I cannot speak to the detail.

We are saying that victims have told us lots of things about how they are communicated with. They have told us that communication can be oblique and hard for them to understand and that they might not receive the updates that they expect.

There are challenges for us, as a system with individual organisations within it, in looking at how we engage with victims to make sure that, in the first instance, we do all the things that we should do under the charters and that, secondly, when we communicate with victims, we do so in a trauma-informed and accessible way. It is about managing their expectations so that, at the start of an investigation, they have an idea of when they are likely to hear information and understand what is going on so that they will think not, "Have I been forgotten about?" but, "Actually, I'm not expecting an update". That is something that the commissioner designate has pushed for. We do not have it in place yet, but we want to work towards that.

At the beginning of the process, we should ask victims, "Do you want updates, or do you just want to know when something has changed?". It is about moving from where we are to a place that better suits the interests and needs of individual victims. Not everybody will want regular updates that say, "Nothing is happening in your case" or, "There is no news". However, some people will want such updates, and we need to work towards providing that.

Those are some of the things that we want to do under the heading of information and communication. It is about how we communicate, how often we communicate and how we take on board the views of victims. The requirement to register for the victim information schemes is, I understand, set in statute.

Mr Beattie: Yes. Julie, everything that you are explaining to me makes sense, but it still means that, once a trial is finished, there is a demarcation line. The situation after the trial is different from that before and during the trial; that is the reality. I will put my cards on the table: the system for victim information should, from the moment that an individual becomes a victim or a witness, be opt-out as opposed to opt-in. I have been saying that for a long time. I accept your point that some people do not want the information — they would opt out — but an awful lot of victims are so traumatised by the crime perpetrated against them that they do not even think of signing up to a scheme to make sure that they get information.

To be honest, I am slightly concerned because, in my head, a victim remains a victim from the moment when they become a victim all the way through the criminal justice system to the trial and then, post-trial, when they get picked up by the Probation Board's victim unit, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) victim unit or the PSNI victim unit. There are so many victim care units that there is a degree of duplication. It does not feel very joined up. I will not labour the point, Julie, but I am slightly concerned that the system does not seem to flow all the way through from start to finish.

Ms Egan: Thank you for coming in today. I want to talk about the development of the strategy. We had the previous strategy for victims and witnesses of crime for 2021-24 and then 2025. That was evaluated; things had to be brought forward; and, in developing the strategy, you had to look again at things that worked well or did not work well.

I am also interested to hear how the strategy has linked with other Departments and other government strategies that focus on victims. I think of those that sit under the Executive Office, the Department of Health and the Department of Justice for the domestic and sexual abuse strategy and the ending violence against women and girls strategy. How have you linked in with those strategies to ensure that everything is aligned?

Ms Wilson: I am the policy lead for the Department on the domestic and sexual abuse strategy, so there is continuity. There is a lot of continuity across both strategies with our partner organisations and the victim representative organisations that we work with, and we look at how they interact.

Across the three teams in the Department, they look at what we are doing in respect of the victim needs assessment service that we want to bring forward. Under the domestic and sexual abuse strategy, we have provided advocacy services for high-risk, high-harm victims of domestic and sexual abuse. The victim needs assessment service would provide almost a safety net for people who are not being referred into that, but there is still some sort of support there.

When that victim needs assessment service is in place, it can look at whether the person who has been referred to the service should be referred to the advocacy service. The intention is to have a joined-up, holistic system that will provide services and support for all victims of crime. Therefore, there is continuity and thinking across the strategies.

Equally, with the domestic and sexual abuse strategy, we have worked closely with the Executive Office to make sure that there is alignment with the ending violence against women and girls strategic framework. There is a real benefit in having the same policy teams having a helicopter view. They can look at the other touchpoints, such as speeding up justice, and make sure that, while the victim and witness strategy does not include or duplicate the work under the speeding up justice strategy, we recognise the importance of it. They can also look at the crossovers with what we are doing under the victim and witness strategy, for example, in communicating with victims and managing expectations.

I have lost the trail of the question. Do you want to come in?

Ms Joanne McDermott (Department of Justice): I will help on reviewing the performance of the last strategy. We published a performance report setting out what we had achieved in the last strategy. That was the basis of our call for views, so that was the first stage of our engagement.

We sought views on what we were taking forward and feedback on what we could do better. That formed the next stage, which was the full consultation. That was built on in our draft strategy when we went out to full consultation. Therefore, there was a performance review of what was working well and what we should continue to do.

We engaged at a very early stage across our Department with anybody dealing with any strategy in the Department of Justice that may involve victims at the end of it, as well as across all Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) Departments, to make sure not only that we took on their views but that they were aware of what we were doing.

Ms Egan: The Department has consulted on and the Minister plans to bring forward a victims and witnesses of crime Bill, and the Department and the Minister are hopeful that that will pass in this mandate. How will that affect the strategy that you have put forward? Will that need to adapt if the legislative context changes during the course of the strategy, and how have you planned for that?

Ms Wilson: The Bill would be a big enabler for a number of the measures that we want to deliver under the strategy. If the Bill were not to get through in this mandate, that would delay some measures that we want to bring forward. In a new mandate, we would need to bring those back to the Minister to ensure that they wanted to proceed with them.

The Bill is intended to deliver new protections for victims of crime against the pillars of the strategy. If we were unable to complete the Bill in this mandate, the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime would continue, so there would be interim provision. We would not be able to achieve some things, but there would be interim measures for a lot of them. For example, as part of the Bill we want to introduce third-party legal representation for victims of serious sexual offences at pre-trial stage. We would not be able to do that without the Bill. There would, however, be some provision in that we already have sexual offences legal advisers (SOLAs) who also provide some advocacy to the PPS. However, the full ambition would not be achieved without the Bill.

Ms Egan: The departmental strategies that have the biggest impacts and most buy-in are those with co-design and co-production. How did you engage with victims in particular but also with children? Being a victim of a crime can be horrendous for anybody, but, when it happens to a child or a vulnerable person, it can be very difficult. How have you ensured that the voice of the child is heard in the work of the strategy?

Ms McDermott: We engaged mainly with representatives of victims and children. That gave us a lot of information for the strategy. We tried to engage with the Youth Assembly but were not able to due to timings. We got valuable feedback from the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY), who gave us a good children and young persons' perspective. The main engagements to get feedback on the experience of children and young people were with the NSPCC's young witness service and Victim Support and through the commissioner's office. That was important, and we did everything that we could to get that voice heard through the system. Through the consultation, other representative organisations fed back to us through the call for views, and there was feedback through public comments.

Ms Wilson: It is not just "job done" once the strategy is published but how we continue to engage and strengthen our engagement mechanisms. We want to seek victim feedback. That was done previously through the Northern Ireland victim and witness survey. We are working to find an alternative mechanism to get victim feedback throughout and at the end of their journey through the justice system but also through focus groups. In looking at what that mechanism will be, we are holding a workshop with children's representatives to see how we make sure that we capture the voices of children and engage with them and do feedback with children who are victims and witnesses where they want to engage in a safe and non-intrusive way. We need to think carefully about how we do that. Engaging with organisations that represent children is important, and we need to get it right.

Ms Egan: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Before I bring in the Deputy Chairperson, Emma, I will keep you on Connie's point about the victims and witnesses Bill. In the actions in your strategy, you use two types of terminology. For some actions, you say that you will:

That is clear and concise, but you also use terminology that states you will "legislate to improve victim experience". You do not mention the victims and witnesses of crime Bill in that second bit of terminology, but you have a timescale of one to three years for those actions, and the victims and witnesses Bill is really the only show in town. When you use the terminology "legislate to improve", does that mean that it will be included in the victims and witnesses Bill?

Ms Wilson: We believe that the provisions in the victims and witnesses Bill will improve victims and witnesses' experiences. That is why they are there. We intend to do that not through changes to the disclosure system but through, for example, enhanced protections for the article 8 rights of victims of serious sexual offences but without compromising the article 6 rights of the defendant. There are things in there about the disclosure process that would make a difference. We know that because it came out of the Gillen review, with victims of serious sexual offences saying that the process is a traumatic experience.

It is about redressing the balance, and we believe that there will be an improvement for victims. It is also about placing a statutory duty to report on organisations that have obligations under the charters. We believe that a requirement to report on compliance will drive improvements on compliance. Those improvements to compliance are intended to improve the outcomes for and the experiences of victims and witnesses. Essentially, it is tied to the Bill. Those provisions are to improve victims and witnesses' experience.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Irrespective of the terminology, wherever it is deemed in the strategy to be a legislative action, will it be brought in via the victims and witnesses Bill?

Ms Wilson: It is a six-year strategy, and our action plan is for two years. We say in our action plan that the legislation is the victims and witnesses Bill. The strategy and action plan will evolve, as there will be emerging issues, so I cannot say that everything in the strategy that needs legislation will be in the Bill. There may be something down the line for which there is a legislative requirement.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): If it is not covered by the victims and witnesses Bill, what other legislation is there, given that you have put a three-year time frame on it?

Ms Wilson: At the minute, there is only the victims and witnesses Bill. I am saying that there may be something else further down the line within the six years.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you.

Ms Sheerin: I want to focus on the rural crime element of the strategy. You referred to engagement with rural communities: how much of that has happened? Whom have you consulted?

Ms McDermott: That was one of our most successful areas of engagement in that it was entirely new to us and the detail from it was eye-opening. We met a large Cookstown community group. It had widespread representation at the meeting and brought to our attention a lot of issues that we have brought to the strategy. We plan to keep engaging on that and specifically with that group. Does that answer your question?

Ms Sheerin: Is it ongoing?

Ms McDermott: It has started in the sense that our consultation has informed the new strategy, and it is ongoing, because the fact that we will continue engagement with them and listen to their views is embedded in our action plan and performance framework. We have invited them to what, we hope, will be our launch on 11 March to keep that conversation going. Threaded throughout the action plan is engagement not just with the rural community but with other hard-to-reach groups with which we have contact for maybe the first time now and can continue engagement.

Ms Sheerin: Is there a cross-border element?

Ms McDermott: They raised the cross-border element of some of the crimes that they were dealing with, particularly around the Fermanagh lakes. We have since put them in contact with our colleagues in Dublin.

Ms Sheerin: OK, but it is not coming from the Department.

Ms McDermott: What is not?

Ms Sheerin: Rural crime, such as the theft of machinery or stock, is brought to my attention as a rural representative. Often, those items, for want of better terminology, end up in the Twenty-six Counties. One of the problems flagged up with us is that there is not enough engagement between the various bodies on either side of the border.

Ms McDermott: On rural crime issues, drug trafficking was the big one that came up for us.

Ms Sheerin: Yes.

Ms Wilson: There are likely to be some things that we all need to get into detail on in relation to the victim and witness aspects. There may be other aspects of those issues that other policy teams would need to look at from an operational response. However, I am happy to take it away and look at it.

Ms Sheerin: OK. Thanks, Chair.

Mr Kingston: Thank you for your answers so far. Apologies about the launch: I have Finance Committee on a Wednesday afternoon. If there is a pre-part to the launch, I will attend that in the Long Gallery beforehand.

If I were to ask you what is new in the new strategy, compared with the previous three- and one-year strategies, are there any particular developments? A lot will have rolled forward, but what headlines would you point to?

Ms Wilson: The Bill is new and really important, as there are things in it that we have wanted to do for a long time. The Bill may be new, but it is also following on and growing from things that were in the last strategy. It is taking the desire to be better at complying with the charters and saying, "Now, you are going to have to report on it". That is new.

We have wanted a victim needs assessment service, which is subject to funding being made available, for a long time. We have not had funding. We are actively bidding for funding, but we have not got a decision on it yet.

Mr Kingston: What would it sit within? You have the victim and witness care unit in the PPS and Victim Support NI, which, I presume, is more voluntary sector. I appreciate that there are different roles, but sometimes the system seems increasingly complicated.

Ms Wilson: The victim needs assessment service is intended to uncomplicate it. The victim and witness care unit is run by the PPS and the police and is largely about communicating information about a case etc, once a case has been passed to the PPS, so it is quite factual. Victim Support provides a range of support services to all victims of crime, and we have funding to do that. The victim needs assessment service would try to bridge those functions. Once a crime has been reported, we engage with the victim to assess their needs. We ask, "How often do you want us to communicate with you?"; we look at their needs for the trial; and we look more holistically at what those needs are and how to signpost them, providing not just factual information but practical support and signposting to other organisations where they do not have that support in-house.

The vision originally recommended by Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJINI) was that that would bring together Victim Support with the PPS and the police to bring the care unit role and the support role together to provide a service that will stay with the victim throughout their journey as their needs change and to lessen the complexity of the system.

Mr Kingston: Will Victim Support, as we know it, still exist?

Ms Wilson: Yes. We see Victim Support as a delivery partner; that is the vision in the CJINI recommendation. However, Victim Support has a wider role in that it provides support services. The victim needs assessment service is likely to be a branch of Victim Support and would refer into other services provided by it.

Mr Kingston: Would the victims needs assessment service, by its nature, be a statutory service, or would it be delivered through a voluntary and community organisation?

Ms Wilson: We need to work out the model. Work was done on a model, but we need to go back and review it, because a lot has changed since. Statutory agencies and Victim Support would be a partnership and would work collaboratively. It would involve parts of the victim and witness care unit working alongside a victim needs assessment service and would be funded by the Department.

Mr Kingston: Sorry, I interrupted you about the headlines: are those the main two that you would point to?

Ms Wilson: Under the Bill, one of the big things is the establishment of a statutory commissioner for victims of crime. We have a commissioner designate. The Bill would give powers to a statutory commissioner and place duties on organisations with charter obligations to report against those. There will be provisions on disclosure and third-party legal representation as well as hate crime.

The other thing that we are working towards with Health is the development of a Barnahus model.

Mr Kingston: Sorry, what is that?

Ms Wilson: A Barnahus model. "Barnahus" means "children's house". It is an Icelandic model for providing wrap-around healthcare and justice services for children who are victims of sexual offences. We have been working with Health and other partners and the voluntary sector on what such a model for Northern Ireland would look like. The thinking on it is quite far advanced. We hope to put recommendations on a high-level model to Ministers in the coming months. Is there anything more that you want to say on that, Emma?

Ms Emma Crozier (Department of Justice): I will give a bit of an update. We hope to send options to the Justice Minister and the Health Minister by June. Yesterday, we had a further workshop on the Barnahus model that brought together stakeholders from the voluntary and community sector and statutory organisations. We looked again at the options to make sure that we fully analysed and evaluated them. The next step will be to identify the high-level costs so that we can go to the Ministers with proposals.

Mr Kingston: OK. I will ask a question from the other point of view. Given the complexity of the criminal justice system generally, do you see any opportunities for making it less complicated and making savings? Every layer that we add is, no doubt, well intentioned and provides more support, but is there any opportunity for savings to be made by bringing services together?

Ms Wilson: I do not know about savings, but we want to avoid duplication. The victim needs assessment service will be a new service and will cost money. However, we do not want it to cost money by doing something that is already being done. That is why we need to look at how it will dock into our existing supports rather than replicating them. Even if those supports are being delivered by a different organisation, they need to dovetail. Our vision is cohesion across the system so that we do not create needless additional cost.

In order to deliver what we want to deliver under the strategy, however, there will be costs attached. I do not think that it is about making savings.

Mr Kingston: It is about avoiding duplication.

I have one other question. The papers that the Committee received mention a roll-out of transcripts of sentencing hearings. I cannot find that in the strategy. I thought that it might have been included in the third pillar, which is on transparency and participation.

Ms Wilson: The strategy is high-level, and a lot of the detail will sit in the action plan rather than the strategy. The strategy will set out our objectives, while the action plan will set out what we will do to achieve them.

Is it in the action plan?

Ms Crozier: Yes, it is in the action plan.

Mr Kingston: We have raised previously the issue of transparency in the justice system. Can you say a bit more about how that will be rolled out? Will it be for certain types of case? Will it start with perhaps more serious cases?

Ms Wilson: Do you mean providing transcripts to victims?

Mr Kingston: Yes, transcripts of sentencing remarks. I think that we agree that, often, especially when a guilty plea is entered, the victim does not get to hear the sentencing remarks. Part of the closure process for victims is to hear the judge's comments.

Ms Crozier: We plan to run a pilot scheme first. Work still has to be done in order to figure out which cohort we will look at first. England and Wales have focused on rape and serious sexual offences. In the action plan, we have not narrowed down the list of offences, but we will look at it when we are progressing that pilot.

Mr Kingston: Is there a start date for that?

Ms Crozier: It will be within the first two years of the action plan.

Ms Finnegan: One of the major problems for victims of domestic abuse and sexual offences is how they are treated in court. It is all too regular an occurrence that victims' sexual history or information about their private life is weaponised to discredit or humiliate them. Pillar 4 of the strategy talks about legislation to protect victims and witnesses: what will that legislation entail and when will we see it?

Ms Wilson: That will be one of the provisions in the victims and witnesses of crime Bill, which will legislate on the disclosure regime and make provision for third-party representation for victims in serious sexual offence cases. The intention is not to prevent an application being made for disclosure, because the defendant has the right to a fair trial; it is to create a statutory process in which the defence will need to set out time frames to show the relevance of the information that it seeks to disclose. That will then go before a judge to be considered either in the papers or in pretrial proceedings. It is absolutely not about removing the right to apply for third-party material to be disclosed. It recognises however, exactly what you said: we know that disclosing such information is traumatic for victims and that, in many cases, its relevance is not demonstrated. We know that it contributes to attrition, and that came out in the Gillen review. The victims and witnesses of crime Bill will address those things by rebalancing and seeking to protect the article 8 rights of the complainant, albeit not at the expense of the article 6 rights of the defendant, which are absolute.

Do you want to say anything more on that, Emma?

Ms Crozier: Yes, I will add something about independent legal representation for complainants. Complainants in serious sexual offences cases will have a right to independent legal representation at specific pretrial application hearings. It will be available for pretrial applications for third-party material disclosures, which could include counselling records and applications by the accused to admit evidence about the victim's sexual history at trial.

Ms Finnegan: Thank you very much.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you, ladies. I am always impressed by you. You have produced a really positive strategy. Stakeholders are positive about it, so well done.

I was going to ask a question about a Barnahus model, but Emma has already answered it. I am delighted that recommendations will be made, because that model is the gold standard, particularly for young people. I will keep an eye on that, but it is good to have got an update on it.

This question will be a difficult one, and you may not be able to answer it. Previously, you said that a lot of work had been done to align the strategy with other Departments' strategies. I know that doing that can be really complex, because the strategy overlaps with other Departments' strategies. I want to ask about your approach to identifying gaps. There are key gaps in social care, housing provision and education in the need to provide better support for victims and witnesses. How will you close those gaps? You will need loads of buy-in and, I presume, resource from other Departments in order to do that. Putting in investment yourself and liaising with other Departments to seek buy-in and resource from them will be a hard nut to crack. That is a difficult question to answer, but where are you with that?

Ms Wilson: Some of that will need to be discussed at Executive level. When we consulted on the commissioner's role, it was intended to sit within the Department of Justice, and that is what we plan to legislate for. However, we anticipated the future, so we also consulted on whether there was a role for the commissioner in wider victims' issues, ones that go beyond the remit of the Department of Justice. The victim and witness steering group has contributed to the development of the strategy. The Department of Health is represented on the steering group as well. That recognises that there is a huge role for Health and Social Care to play, particularly in cases of domestic and sexual abuse, but it also has a role to play in dealing with other, wider victim issues, such as their health and mental health and the impact that crime has on victims.

The starting point for this is quite small. It is about how we support people financially to turn up at court, for example. My understanding is that the PPS will have a fund so that people's travel expenses will be met and they can claim them back. We want to look at that, because, in some cases, claiming it back is not appropriate, as some individuals need the money in order to get to court. Reviewing that is our starting point. It is a small issue, but we want to look at it. In looking at that, however, we find ourselves asking whether there are similar impacts on victims who attend court for which the Department of Justice is not responsible. For example, if an individual needs an extra day off work to attend court, will that affect their earnings and so on? The answer to your question is that I do not have an answer.

Ms Ferguson: I was not expecting you to have an answer.

Ms Wilson: We recognise, however, that victims have extensive needs and interests that go beyond the responsibility of the Department of Justice, and we recognise the need for us to engage on those. We have said we will start the work on financial support for attending court. We engage regularly with the Department of Health, and it is represented on the steering group, as well as on the domestic and sexual abuse oversight board, as are the Department for Communities and the Department of Education. Some work is ongoing, but we recognise that there is a greater need. We also believe that there is a role for the commissioner designate, not necessarily to deliver on those issues but to highlight and drive them forward and push us, really.

Ms McDermott: There is also something around the fact that other Departments' policies — you mentioned education and housing — involve victims, but people do not often see that. There is something there on raising that awareness.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): No other members have indicated that they want to ask questions.

Thank you very much, Julie, Emma and Joanne, for attending the Committee today and answering our questions.